There Remains No Evidence Of Trump-Russia Collusion

Paul Roderick Gregory
, ContributorI cover domestic and world economics from a free-market perspective.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 19: Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (R) leaves the U.S. Capitol following a closed-door briefing with members of the House of Representatives May 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. Rosenstein met with senators a day earlier...

Where is the evidence of President Trump's collusion with Russia?

The Wall Street Journal – no particular fan of Trump – characterizes the DOJ charge to Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, as fatally open-ended, vague, and flawed. His instruction lists no federal statutes and invites a fishing expedition into trivial matters. Journalists covering the story appear to disagree on what Mueller is supposed to do: Is he to “oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials” or “investigate possible coordination between President Trump’s associates and Russian officials?”

The political feeding frenzy has, to date, brought forth the following facts of Russiagate: Persons associated with the Trump campaign had contacts with Russians, some unsavory. Trump businesses, like other luxury property developers, had dealings with wealthy Russian buyers. Trump did not condemn Putin during the campaign and expressed a hope (shared by many across the political spectrum) of improved relations.

These facts shed little light, if any, on collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian state to throw the election to Trump, as is evidenced by the deafening silence of anti-Trumpists. As Jim Geraghty writes in National Review:

The FBI counterintelligence guys presumably track Russian agents on our soil as much as possible. You figure the NSA can track just about any electronic communication between Russians and figures in the Trump campaign. If there was something sinister and illegal going on…the U.S. government as a whole had every incentive in the world to expose that as quickly as possible.

Diverse figures and outlets agree that the nexus of “possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign” does not include any evidence of collusion. Maxine Waters (D-CA) concedes there is no proof of collusion as does Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) joined by Trump nemesis Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Fox political analyst, Brit Hume, on Sunday’s #MediaBuzz stated that he has never seen a charge get so far out in front of the available evidence over the course of his long career. Matt Taibbi, a left-wing columnist for Rolling Stone who calls Trump the “crazy clown President," points out that “despite almost daily leaks by anonymous sources, we do not know whether it is about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian state.”

Follow the Smoke Not the Fourth Amendment

The New York Times, in a lead editorial, counters the lack of evidence of collusion as follows: “The known facts suggest an unusually extensive network (my italics) of relationships with a major foreign power.” The Times’ logic: Trump-associate dealings with Russians are alone sufficient justification for an investigation. Where there is smoke, there may be fire. So, investigate, investigate, investigate until you find something.

The smoke-justifies-the-investigation argument is inconsistent with centuries of common law and the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of “probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.” Realizing the inconsistency with the rule of law, Deputy AG Rosenstein cited “unique circumstances” and “the public interest” to justify the independent counsel. Taibbi disagrees in a moment of candor. “Liberal thinkers have traditionally abhorred secret courts, secret surveillance and secret evidence” and “reflexively discouraged the news media from printing unverified or unverifiable charges emanating from such secret sources. But because it's Donald Trump, no one seems to care.”

If Trump can be singled out for an undated blank-check scavenger hunt, who is next? What if Republicans had achieved a similar investigation of Barack Obama’s ties to individuals hostile to the American system in his background, such as Bill Ayres, Reverend Wright, Addie Wyatt, and Frank Marshall Davis? I see little difference, other than a pro-Obama media and a stick-together-no-matter-what Democratic Party.

What 'Extensive' Russian Network of Trump?

An inventory of Trump-Russia “smoke” consists of the following: A peripheral Trump associate purportedly communicated with the hacker (or hacking group) identified as Guccifer 2.0. (How he did so I could not know). Maxine Waters (D-CA) hypothesized that Russian propagandists trained Trump. Others cite the 18 contacts (declared innocuous by the intelligence community) between the Trump campaign and Russia in the last seven months of the campaign. High on the smoke list is the paid speech ($43,000) by Trump advisor Michael Flynn (who failed to disclose an otherwise-legal conversation with the Russian ambassador). A final puff of smoke is former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort’s, consulting work for unsavory Ukrainian/Russian politicians and oligarchs.

Three contacts per month do not add up to an “unusually extensive network.” Note that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had “lots of meetings” with Russian officials including Ambassador Kislyak during the campaign, Bill Clinton delivered a $500,000 speech to a Russian oligarch in 2010. The insider Democratic lobbying behemoth, Podesta Group, charged a Kremlin-associated bank $170,000 for lobbying in 2016 for removal of sanctions and $60,000 to Uranium One in 2015 to lobby for a huge uranium deal in favor of Russia. Manafort directed his wealthy Ukrainian/Russia clients to the Podesta Group, which cashed in more than a million dollars in lobbying fees. Democrat heavyweight Lanny Davis represented a fugitive oligarch, who also happened to be a Manafort client. Yes, indeed, Washington’s K-Street swamp is deep and incestuously blurs party affiliation.

Trump’s Had Real Estate Dealings With the Russians: So what?

In its Russia-Trump Nexus, the Times points the finger at his “extensive commercial and personal relationships with politically-connected Russian businessmen” in high-end real estate in New York and Miami. Trump’s cited Russian business ties date largely to pre-sanction Russia during the Obama-Clinton “reset.” Restrictions on doing business with Russia date from April 2014 to present and are limited to sanctioned firms and individuals.

The Times fails to disclose that luxury international real estate is disproportionally dominated by wealthy Russians, Chinese, and Gulf State Arabs. More than one third of the world’s billionaires hail from these three areas. Hence, there should be no shock or distaste that Trump businesses sold almost $100 million worth of properties in Trump-branded towers in Florida to 63 individuals with Russian passports and addresses long before Trump’s presidential ambitions. If the Times wishes to heap abuse on Trump for dealing with shady oligarchs, it must similarly censure property developers in London’s Belgravia, the French Riviera, Switzerland, and Dubai.

The political and media establishment looks with distaste at the rough-and-tumble of international business. They, however, look the other way when Al Gore sells his environmental TV network to Al Jazeera for $70 million, the Clinton Foundation accepts $100 million from a Russian-connected uranium magnate, the Bill Clinton campaign accepts almost $400,000 of Chinese funds bundled by a White House regular, or career politicians retiring to million dollar payoffs in K-Street lobbying firms.